Chapter Six
"Okay, this isn't creepy at all." Rocket said, stepping into what looked like a warehouse with all sorts of creatures trapped in glass boxes. It looked sorta like some kinda animal/humanoid zoo.
"We house the galaxy's largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manner," they pass by a dog who growls at Rocket, and he growls back.
Percy muttered behind Quill, "More like imprison." He was still not okay and would rather not look at Quill at the moment. He was kind of insulted by his comment and he was thankful Carina stopped the exchange that was bound to follow when she brought them in. Quill was trying very hard not to look at Percy. He wasn't sure if he believed the man. Before today he would have thought him crazy but right now, they were standing in a giant decomposing head. He's been to a lot of worlds and heard a lot of myths about different gods. Some of them were real, some of them not so much. Could it really be possible that the gods of earth were real? It would make sense of the scars covering his body, especially the lightning bolt one. It would make sense that he was being trained to be a hero if he was a demigod like Achilles or one who knew of the gods like Patroclus. If the gods of earth were real that begs the question, why did they kill Percy? Were the vindictive or was Percy really just that dangerous. Forget that the real question was how he was alive if he claimed Zues had killed him. Should he be glad he left Terra because of them, or should he be scared of the young man standing next to him?
"I present to you, Taneleer Tivan, The Collector," Carina said, snapping Quill out of his thoughts.
'The Collector' turned around, and Percy was met with a big guy dressed in furs with a weird pair of glasses on. He walked toward Gamora who stepped up, "Oh, my dear Gamora." He took her hand in his "How wonderful to meet in the flesh," He kissed the back. Percy thought he spoke a lot like Snape from the Harry Potter movies.
"Let's bypass the formalities, Tivan. We have what we discussed."
The Collector's eyes bypassed Gamora and fell upon Groot, "What is that thing there?"
"I am Groot."
"I never thought I'd meet a Groot. Sir... You must all me to pay you now so that I may own your carcass. At the moment of your death, of course."
"I am Groot."
"Why, so he could turn you into a frickin' chair?"
Percy shook his head, "This man is just as much of a lunatic as Zues if not more." He could basically sense the god complex coming off of him, 'at least Zues was an actual god.' It took a lot for Percy to praise his murderer but somehow Tivan made him do it. Quill heard Percy, he was muttering to himself though and it seemed he had no idea that Quill heard him. So at the very least he thought what he was saying was true.
"That's your pet?"
Quill and Percy shook their heads, "His what?" Rocket started pulling out his gun. It was a bad idea to insult Rocket even unintentionally. Though Percy wasn't sure if that was unintentional or not.
Gamora stepped in before Rocket could get trigger happy, "Tivan. We have been halfway around the galaxy, retrieving this Orb."
"Very well, then. Let us see what you brought." Percy pulled it out of his Satchel and handed it to the collector knowing that very soon he would have it back.
"Oh, my new friends. Before creation itself, there were six singularities." He said after hooking up the orb to a machine to unlock it, "and six great beings called concepts who slain the beast whose head we reside in at the very moment, The others never seen before by anyone alive. Fate, Ego, Chaos, Order, Peace, and Destruction." Percy's eyes widened. "Then the universe exploded into existence," Circular memories burst to life around them "and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots. Gifts of the concepts they say," As he opened the orb purple light fazed out of it "Infinity Stones." The memories etched showed an image of a different stone "These stones, it seems, can only be brandished by beings of extraordinary strength. Observe." He showed a robot-like entity carrying the stone on a staff, "These carriers can use the Stone to mow down entire civilizations like wheat in a field." It destroyed an entire planet in seconds. "At least this one, it is said that this one is created by Destruction."
Quill was thoroughly freaked out. "There's a little pee coming out of me right now."
"Once, for a moment, a group was able to share the energy amongst themselves, but even they were quickly destroyed by it," That was not a pretty image. All of them were disintegrated.
He got very excited as soon as the whole orb was open and suddenly Percy wasn't so sure about leaving it here even for a moment. "Beautiful. Beyond compare."
"We're all very fascinated, whitey. But we'd like to get paid," Rocket snapped.
"How would you like to get paid?"
"What do you think, fancy man? Units!"
He opened his drawer "Very well, then." His servant drew closer to the stone "Carina. Stand back."
"I will no longer be your slave!"
"No!" Percy shouted. She grabbed the stone power crawling up her arm, She screamed as it overwhelmed her starting to tear her attomes apart, "get down!" Percy pulled Gamora and Quill down, Groot grabbed Rocket and ran out. The building practically exploded, setting all of The Collector's creatures free from their cells.
As soon as it was over the three peaked up "What the..." something else sparked behind Quill.
Percy was furious, "What in the name of Hades!" he started off in a greek tangent "Πώς θα μπορούσε κανείς - έχω γνωρίσει μόνο μια ομάδα ανθρώπων σε όλη μου τη ζωή που ήταν, τόσο... τόσο...Despicable!" He grabbed the collector up by his cloak as Gamora closed the orb, "What did you do to her!" No answer, "What did you threaten her with! No one willingly touches an object that they know has killed everyone who held it, unless they are harmed or threatened. What did you do to her that made her feel that was the only answer!" When Tivan still didn't answer Percy's pupils and Scleras were gone in the place a pure sea green abyss like he was looking to the depths of the angry Terran ocean. Moisture pulled itself from the air and circled around him in his own personal storm. He threw out his hands and Tivan was secured to the ground with the concrete floor of his own building. He pulled his hand back and Tivan started screaming in agonizing pain.
Gamora grabbed Percy's shoulder, he turned to her and Quill with a fierce glare. Both stumbled away from him. He took a deep breath and released the collector from his punishment and let Gamora drag him out. "How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was within the Orb?"
"What do you still have it for?" Rocket asked hysterically as soon as he saw them come out.
"What are we gonna do, leave it in there?" Quill argues
"I can't believe you had that in your purse!"
"It's not a purse," Percy growled, "it's a satchel!" he shook his head, "I'm not arguing with you about this!"
"We have to bring this to the Nova Corps. There's a chance they can contain it."
"Are you kidding me? We're wanted by the Nova Corps. Just give it to Ronan!"
"So he can destroy the galaxy!?" Percy reasoned in his own hysterics he had no idea that there was an infinity stone in there if he had he would have taken it home ages ago.
"What are you, some saint all of a sudden? What has the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?"
"Because we're a couple of the idiots who live in it!"
Gamora grabbed Quill's shoulder, "Peter, listen to me, Percy is right, we cannot allow the Stone to fall into Ronan's hands. We have to go back to your ship and deliver it to Nova."
"I didn't say that! Nova wants to arrest me too!"
"Right, right, okay. I think you're right. Or we could give it to somebody who's not going to arrest us, who's really nice for a whole lot of money." Gamora reeled back. "I think it's a really good balance between both of your points of view."
"You're despicable. Dishonorable. Faithless!"
Percy grabbed the orb from Gamora, "Quill is right," said man looked up at Percy. He looked back at Quill and Rocket, "My ommer can send this back to the void it came from. Tivan was right about the six being. Two each live in Three separate voids across space. I am the champion of Chaos and Order. They saved me after I was killed. Chaos is like my parents and Order my ommer. I don't know where Destruction and Peace live but I'm sure Order can send this back to them or at the very least contain it. I wasn't going to do it for money but I'm sure they'll pay you. This is coming home with me now!"
"Are you absolutely sure about this? They can contain it and we'll get paid." Rocket asked.
Percy nodded, "Positive."
"Looks like we're meeting the concepts."
"Oh no." He heard Gamora breathe; He looked in her direction. and saw dozens of ships fall in.
Drax's arms extended with weapons in hand, "At last!" He laughed, "I shall meet my foe and destroy him!"
"You called Ronan?" Quill shouted.
"Are you insane?" Percy snapped.
"Quill! Don't you move, boy!" Percy looked to the side and saw the ravagers. The five Immediately ran. "Don't you move! Get out of the way!"
"Ronan the Accuser!"
That's all Percy heard before he loaded himself into an escape pod, with the orb in hand, and took off.
Percy's pod was being tracked down and shot at by one of Ronan's ships, "Hell I can't concentrate on my room!" he smacked down on the controls and quickly jerked to the side away from another blast. He hadn't been able to think about his room or anything on the concept planets since the orb had been opened.
"Rocket, keep them off Gamora and Percy until they get to the Milano. I'm not sure who has the orb Ronan showed up too quickly."
"How? We've got no weaponry on these things."
"These pods are industrial grade. They're nearly indestructible."
"Not against necroblasts, they're not."
"That's not what I'm saying," a dawning realization came over Rocket. He started ramming the pod straight though Ronan's ships unscathed.
Percy and Gamora fell in line waving around each other to confuse the scanners. Quill ripped the top out of one of the ships chasing down Percy and threw the man at the controls out. "Let me borrow your ride." he used the claws of the pod to control the newly acquired ship and used the necroblaster to hit down a few more ships.
The two got pushed against a wall of the skull, "Quill, we're trapped. we can't make it to the Milano," Gamora told him over the coms.
"We have to head out," Percy added.
"Wait! These things aren't meant to go out there."
"You are a disappointment, sister." A girl's voice came over the comms. Percy was immediately interested, Sister? "Of all our siblings, I hated you least."
Gamora's came next, "Nebula, please. If Ronan gets this stone, he'll kill us all."
"Not all. You will already be dead," and she blew up Gamora's pod, sending her off and Percy spiraling closer back to Knowhere. Not seeing the Orb, Nebula zoned in on Percy.
"Whoa, whoa, Nebula, was it? Come one please think for a second, Gamora's right you're not gonna survive this. If you want to kill Thanos, you can't side with Ronan. I can help." Nebula didn't like that the man could basically read her mind, in reality it was just a really good guess. He wasn't sure how anyone could stand Thanos and him and Ronan definitely clashed heads more than a few times. After only a moment of hesitation she blew up his pod as well. Percy was knocked unconscious floating close to Quill and the orb beamed up into Ronan's ship.
"Quill, come on. Their body mods should keep them alive a couple more minutes, but there's nothing we can do for them. These pods aren't even meant to be out here. In a second, we're gonna be in the same boat." Rocket turned away, starting to fly back to Knowhere.
"Awe Damn it."
"Quill?"
Quill opened up his communications "Yondu! Yondu. This is Quill! My coordinates are 227 K324."
"Quill. Quill, what are you doing?"
"Just outside Knowhere. If you're there, come get me. I'm all yours." Quill opened his pod and made his way out to Gamora and Percy.
"Quill don't be ridiculous. Get back into your pod!" He made it to Percy first who was only a few feet away and shut him up in his pod. "You can't fit more than one person in there, let alone three! You're gonna die. You'll die in seconds! Quill!-" He took off his mask and placed it on Gamora.
Quill and Gamora were surrounded by ravager ships and beamed onto one, hopefully saving their lives. "Percy!" Rocket tried, "Percy!" he heard deep breaths being taken over the comms.
"What happened? Why does my head feel like the fields of punishment?" He looked down and his lap and frantically looked around the pod. Where's the orb?"
Published: Sep 27, 2021
Updated: Apr 30, 2023